how do i connect samba to unix-like operating systems

baronobeefdip · 06-09-2010, 10:56 AM

i want to know how to connect it to debian,fedora, mandriva, puppy (or any other distro thats independant and most software needs to be installed with tarballs)

and i also want to learn to connect to it with mac os x, and solaris (open solaris)

AlucardZero · 06-09-2010, 11:18 AM

smbclient / smbmount

baronobeefdip · 06-09-2010, 04:31 PM

what does that mean and where do i find the network drives (folders , shares whatever you would like to call them) by using the gui interface (like in windows you can see them under network neighborhood)

michaelk · 06-09-2010, 05:18 PM

In a nutshell, samba has two parts i.e the client and server. The server allows other computers (particularly windows) to share files and printers with a linux computer using the windows SMB/CIFS protocol. The client part i.e. smbclient allows linux computers to access windows shares and printers which makes it also possible to connect to other linux computers running a samba server.

Many file browsers like nautilus have the SMB/CIFS protocol built in so one can view network shares just like network neighborhood. However, lightweight browsers typically do not.

OSX supports SMB/CIFS but I am not sure about Solaris.

There is lots of samba information that can be found by googling. What specific information are you looking for?

baronobeefdip · 06-09-2010, 08:09 PM

just connecting a series of windows computers and other unix-like operating systems to a samba server that has ubuntu (or any other linux distro but lets just stick with ubuntu i haven't had any problems using samba with this distro, although i hear fedora was designed for stuff like this) on it i can't make a windows computer into a server too expensive and samba doesn't work on windows it wasn't designed for that (as far as i know)

all this is for someones business he is tired of his server computer crashing

michaelk · 06-09-2010, 09:53 PM

Quote:

samba doesn't work on windows it wasn't designed for that (as far as i know)

In a nutshell, SMB/CIFS is built into windows. samba is linux's implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Message_Block
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...33(VS.85).aspx

damgar · 06-09-2010, 09:57 PM

Install the samba packages using synaptic and then use your "Places" option on the panel. Choose "network" or "connect to server" I'm assuming that the Ubuntu icon in your post is right and that you are using Ubuntu with gnome.

On my lan I mount my samba shares using /etc/fstab so at boot, they show up as local directories similar to the windows idea of "map a network drive". Basically I create a mount point with

Code:

mkdir /path/to/mount-point

and in fstab I add an entry such as

Code:

//SERVER/SHARE       /PATH/TO/MOUNT-POINT      smbfs username=my-user,password=my-user's-password     0   0

Alternatively you can do it manually with something like

Code:

mount -t smbfs //SERVER/SHARE /path/to/mount-point

All of this assumes that your samba server is set up correctly.

jlliagre · 06-10-2010, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelk

OSX supports SMB/CIFS but I am not sure about Solaris.

OpenSolaris includes both Samba client and server components.
The client side has some limitations: http://hub.opensolaris.org/bin/view/...+smbfs/roadmap
On the server side, an alternative to samba is CIFS native support with ZFS (sharesmb property). Gnome Nautilus is OpenSolaris default file browser and has its own SMB library.

baronobeefdip · 06-10-2010, 11:53 AM

how do i connect natilus to the samba server so that it will view the shares as network drives (or folders which ever it is)and i also need to know what to type as the mount point when i connect to the samba server (and what displays when it requests a login)

there also has to be another file manager that can do what you said natilus does

michaelk · 06-10-2010, 12:40 PM

konqueror, krusader, dolphin are several that I think of at the moment.
One can just click the networking icon or type in smb://. You are prompted for username and password if necessary. Shares are not mounted.

You can manually mount a share via the command line. Again there is lots of info that can be found via googling.
Typically you would create a directory to be used as a mount point under /media. Basic example:
mount -t cifs //server/share /media/share (other options would include username,password etc)

baronobeefdip · 06-12-2010, 09:38 PM

just looked everything up and it says i can either use smbfs or cifs (smbfs i think thats what its called isn't maintained anymore so all of the real recent guides are talking about cifs) does ubuntu and any other distro come with this package and how do i run it (is it also included in solaris and mac os they are unix-like operating systems too)